PC-BSD is based on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_UNIX BSD Unix], meaning that it is not a Linux distribution. If you have used Linux before, you will find that some features that you are used to have different names on a BSD system and that some commands are different. This section covers some of these differences.

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|1.|Introduction

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|1.1|Goals and Features

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===Filesystems===

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|1.2|What's New

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|1.3|PC-BSD® Releases

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BSD and Linux use different filesystems during installation. Many Linux distros use EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, or ReiserFS, while PC-BSD uses UFS or ZFS. This means that if you wish to dual-boot with Linux or access data on an external drive that has been formatted with a Linux filesystem, you will want to do a bit of research first to see if the data can be made available on both operating systems.

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|1.4|PC-BSD® for Linux Users

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|2.|Pre-Installation Tasks

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Table 1.4a summarizes the various filesystems commonly used by desktop systems. Most of the desktop managers available from PC-BSD should automatically mount the following filesystems: FAT16, FAT32, EXT2, EXT3 (without journaling), EXT4 (read-only), NTFS5, NTFS6, and XFS. See [[Files and File Sharing]] for more information about available file manager utilities.

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|2.1|Hardware Requirements

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|2.2|Laptops

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'''Table 1.4a: Filesystem Support Between Linux and PC-BSD'''

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|2.3|Partitioning the Hard Drive

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|2.4|Obtaining PC-BSD®

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{{Tbl-init|width=100%}}

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|2.5|Burning the Installation Media

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{{Tbl-title|width=5%|'''Filesystem'''}}

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|2.6|Using VirtualBox

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{{Tbl-title|width=5%|'''Native to'''}}

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|3.|Installing PC-BSD®

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{{Tbl-title|width=35%|'''Type of non-native support'''}}

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|3.1|Language Selection Screen

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{{Tbl-title|width=60%|'''Usage notes'''}}

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|3.2|System Selection Screen

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|3.3|Disk Selection Screen

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<!-- row 1 -->

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|3.4|Installation Progress Screen

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{{Tbl-cell|row=1|align=left|'''Btrfs'''}}

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|3.5|Installation Finished Screen

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{{Tbl-cell|row=1|Linux}}

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|4.|Post Installation Configuration and Installation Troubleshooting

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{{Tbl-cell|row=1|align=left|none}}

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|4.1|Booting Into PC-BSD®

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{{Tbl-cell|row=1|align=left|[[wikipedia:Btrfs|Btrfs]]<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs</ref>, when complete, is expected to offer a feature set comparable to [[wikipedia:ZFS#FreeBSD|ZFS]]<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#FreeBSD</ref>}}

{{Tbl-cell|row=3|EXT3 journaling is not supported. This means that you won't be able to mount a filesystem requiring a journal replay unless you fsck it using an external utility such as [http://www.freshports.org/sysutils/e2fsprogs/ e2fsprogs]<ref name=e2fsprogs>http://www.freshports.org/sysutils/e2fsprogs/</ref>.}}

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|5.3|Using a Rolling Release

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|5.4|Dual Booting

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<!-- row 4 -->

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|5.5|Creating an Automated Installation with pc-sysinstall

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{{Tbl-line|align=left|'''EXT4'''}}

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|6.|Desktops

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{{Tbl-line|Linux}}

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|6.1|KDE4

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{{Tbl-line|align=left|r/o through ext2fs(5)<br>r/o through [http://www.freshports.org/sysutils/fusefs-ext4fuse/ ext4fuse]<ref>http://www.freshports.org/sysutils/fusefs-ext4fuse/</ref>}}

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|6.2|LXDE

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{{Tbl-line|align=left|Journaling is not supported. This means that you won't be able to mount a filesystem requiring a journal replay unless you fsck it using an external utility such as [http://www.freshports.org/sysutils/e2fsprogs/ e2fsprogs]<ref name=e2fsprogs/>. EXT3 filesystems converted to EXT4 may be more likely to have better results. May not work. Neither having extended attributes 'enabled' nor inodes greater than 128-bytes are supported.}}

{{Tbl-line|align=left|r/o support is included in Linux kernel 2.6.5 onwards;<br>r/w support on Mac;<br>[http://www.ufsexplorer.com/download_stdr.php UFS Explorer]<ref name=ufsexplorer>http://www.ufsexplorer.com/download_stdr.php</ref> can be used on Windows}}

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|9.4|MythTV

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{{Tbl-line|align=left|changed to r/o support in Mac Lion}}

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|9.5|XBMC

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|9.6|Windows Emulation

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<!-- row 13 -->

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|9.7|Remote Desktop

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|'''UFS+S'''}}

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|9.8|Thin Client

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|PC-BSD}}

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|9.9|Security

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|check if your Linux distro provides ufsutils;<br>r/w support on Mac;<br>[http://www.ufsexplorer.com/download_stdr.php UFS Explorer]<ref name=ufsexplorer/> can be used on Windows}}

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|9.10|Accessibility

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|changed to r/o support in Mac Lion}}

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|9.11|Create Your Own PBI Repository

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|10.|Finding Help

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<!-- row 14 -->

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|10.1|PC-BSD® Forums

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{{Tbl-line|align=left|'''UFS+J'''}}

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|10.2|IRC Channel

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{{Tbl-line|PC-BSD}}

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|10.3|Mailing Lists

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{{Tbl-line|align=left|check if your Linux distro provides ufsutils;<br>r/w support on Mac;<br>[http://www.ufsexplorer.com/download_stdr.php UFS Explorer]<ref name=ufsexplorer/> can be used on Windows}}

{{Tbl-line|align=left|[http://zfsonlinux.org/ Linux port];<br>Mac support is under [http://code.google.com/p/maczfs/ development]<ref>http://code.google.com/p/maczfs/</ref>}}

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|11.8|Become an Advocate

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{{Tbl-line|align=left|}}

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</onlyinclude>

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===Device Names===

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Linux and BSD use different naming conventions for devices. For example:

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* in Linux, Ethernet interfaces begin with ''eth''; in BSD, interface names indicate the name of the driver. For example, an Ethernet interface may be listed as ''re0'', indicating that it uses the Realtek ''re'' driver. The advantage of this convention is that you can read the '''man 4''' page for the driver (e.g. type '''man 4 re''') to see which models and features are provided by that driver.

Some of the features used by BSD have similar counterparts to Linux, but the name of the feature is different. Table 1.4b provides some common examples:

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'''Figure 1.4b: Names for BSD and Linux Features'''

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{{Tbl-init|width=100%}}

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{{Tbl-title|width=25%|'''PC-BSD'''}}

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{{Tbl-title|width=25%|'''Linux'''}}

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{{Tbl-title|width=50%|'''Description'''}}

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<!-- row 1 -->

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|PF}}

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|iptables}}

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|default firewall}}

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<!-- row 2 -->

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{{Tbl-line|align=left|''/etc/rc.d/'' for operating system and ''/usr/local/etc/rc.d/'' for applications}}

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{{Tbl-line|align=left|''rc0.d/'', ''rc1.d/'', etc.}}

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{{Tbl-line|align=left|in PC-BSD the directories containing the startup scripts do not link to runlevels as there are no runlevels; system startup scripts are separated from third-party application scripts}}

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<!-- row 3 -->

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|''/etc/ttys'' and ''/etc/rc.conf''}}

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|'''telinit''' and ''init.d/''}}

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|terminals are configured in ''ttys'' and ''rc.conf'' indicates which services will start at boot time}}

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===Commands===

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If you're comfortable with the command line, you may find that some of the commands that you are used to have different names on BSD. Table 1.4c lists some common commands and their equivalents.

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'''Table 1.4c: Common BSD and Linux Commands'''

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{{Tbl-init|width=100%}}

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{{Tbl-title|width=25%|'''PC-BSD'''}}

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{{Tbl-title|width=25%|'''Linux'''}}

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{{Tbl-title|width=50%|'''Result'''}}

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<!-- row 1 -->

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|'''dmesg'''}}

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|'''dmesg'''<br>'''lsdev''' (Is this used anywhere?)}}

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{{Tbl-line|bg=ff|align=left|discover what hardware was detected by the kernel}}